News of the incident spread quickly around the world via media coverage carried on ABC, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Democracy Now!, and many other channels, as well as via social media, trending on Twitter, for example, as far away as Egypt.

On her release, Dr. Stein said that, “It was painful but symbolic to be handcuffed for all those hours, because that what the Commission on Presidential Debates has essentially done to American democracy.” Stein and Honkala were eventually released into the cold at 10:30pm. Police provided no advance notice of the release to campaign lawyers and staff, and did not allow the two candidates to make any phone calls.

Cheri Honkala called her incarceration, “extremely uncomfortable, but standard for what so many Americans face on a daily basis in our corrections system.” Added Stein Campaign Manager Ben Manski, “These arrests and this treatment are outrageous and disportionate; who do the police think they are protecting here?”

Jill Stein will be participating in at least four multi-party debates coming up, during which the American people will be able to learn the real range of options available to them this election. Below are the list of debates in which Jill Stein will be participating:

Tuesday, October 23 & Tuesday October 30 — Free and Equal Election’s Alternative Debate will be available live online, streaming from http://freeandequal.org/live on Oct. 23 and Oct 30 at 9:00 PM EST. The first of thses two debates will include Jill Stein from the Green Party; Gary Johnson from the Libertarian Party; Virgil Goode from the Constitution Party; and Rocky Anderson from the Justice Party. More information at:http://action.freeandequal.org/debate-rsvp/

Camille Paglia says she’s fed up with Obama & she’s going for Jill Stein. Camille is a Democrat, not a Green. She will otherwise bring quite a few women voters who are a bit beyond reach of the “pee-cee” catechism. Y’all know I come unequivocally from the Left–but I like to believe I’m as little an ideologue as Camille and appreciate independent thought in any venue.

Paul

Good on ya, Camille!

Paglia interview from Salon Magazine:

Next: I know you’ve got thoughts on the election.

You’re getting an exclusive, because I haven’t said a word about this publicly. Journalists have tried to get me to comment, and I’ve refused, because I’ve been saving it for Salon!

OK: Who are you going to vote for?

I am voting for the Green Party.

Oh, you are? I don’t even know who the Green candidate is. Who is it?

Jill Stein — a doctor from Massachusetts. Now, I wouldn’t be voting Green if Roseanne Barr had won the nomination, but Stein is a solid and sensible candidate. I don’t agree with everything the Green Party says, but I’m in tune with many of its basic positions. I’m remaining a registered Democrat because I still hope for the reform of my party. If the Republican candidate were Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, I would certainly not be voting Green; I would be voting for and contributing to Obama again, as I did in 2008. There are three people on the political landscape whom I absolutely loathe — Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Dick Cheney — that delusional and mendacious war-monger. But I think that Mitt Romney is a moderate — like Nelson Rockefeller, who as governor of New York poured money into the state university system that educated me. Romney is an affable, successful businessman whose skills seem well-suited to this particular moment of economic crisis. Hence I want to use my vote to make a statement about my unhappiness with the Democratic Party and the direction it has taken. The biggest issue for me is the Obama administration’s continuation of endless war, war, war. I denounced the Iraq incursion before it even happened.

I remember that — it was in an interview with David Talbot for Salon.

It was when the cowardly major media were totally accepting the government line and the flimsy evidence that Colin Powell presented at the United Nations. It was only after the invasion had been launched — and the non-discovery of any weapons of mass destruction — that the media woke up and began its way-too-late critique. I have been revolted by the silence of the liberal mainstream media about Obama’s expansion of war — even beyond our pointless continued presence in Afghanistan. After 9/11, I was for bombing the hell out of the mountains of Afghanistan until Osama Bin Laden was caught or blown to smithereens. I certainly never believed that land troops should be used in Afghanistan. Good lord, look at the evidence of history — how ridiculous! Not only the defeat of the Soviet Union there — it goes all the way back to Alexander the Great! But the Libyan incursion is another example. The mainstream media behaved like robots as Hillary Clinton and Samanatha Power and who knows who else put pressure on Obama to go into Libya. What are we doing there? It’s absolutely madness! Then, all of a sudden, when the whole thing blows up and our ambassador is killed, Hillary is in a funk. Oh, dear, how could this have happened? In a country that we helped!

And what is the administration’s response to the murder of our ambassador? Nothing. Do we have a presidency or not? The ambassador’s journal was lying on the floor for CNN to find, and it took weeks for the FBI to get there and spend a day — after sensitive documents were stripped long ago. The State Department has clearly become a morass of political correctness. Hillary and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice should resign. Of course the mainstream media were mum for weeks about the Libyan scandal. And that just empowers the right-wing in the country. The media’s pampering and protection of Obama over the years simply led to his weakening — which was on excruciating public display at his first debate with Romney, who landed blow after blow.

So, the first reason I’m voting Green is the state of endless war. Second is the appalling rise in the military and domestic use of drones. I bought Medea Benjamin’s protest book about drones, and I agree with her. There is reason for great concern about the use of drones for police surveillance in the United States. This Democratic administration has gone very deep into the weeds here in offering incentives to local police departments to acquire drones, which are a serious threat to our civil liberties and right to privacy — which liberals should be defending. We’re on our way toward a Big Brother society.

My third reason for going Green is the creeping totalitarianism of Obamacare, which Jill Stein as a physician is rightly skeptical about. I began denouncing the Obamacare bill in my Salon column within two months after Obama’s inauguration. And I was also criticizing the President’s imprisonment within an insular circle of advisors who were not of sufficient quality and experience as administrators or strategists to sustain his presidency. If Democrats and their cohorts in the mainstream media had listened to me and begun criticizing the administration early on, there would have been ample time for a course correction and Obama would now be sailing into reelection.

But the childish naivete of so many supposedly well-educated liberals was shown by their complete failure to notice or remark on the most glaringly obvious deficiency in Obamacare: You cannot possibly expand medical coverage to millions of people without also expanding medical training and funding new clinics and hospitals. The total absence of that in the bill was ludicrous. And you still hear mush-minded liberals saying all the time in the media, “Oh, what about this nice provision or that?” When any of those things could have been easily dealt with by free-standing bills passed with bipartisan support.

The way liberals lay down flat to accept this massive, totalitarian takeover of the American medical system was shocking to me. Let’s remember how Bob Dylan broke out of folk music into the public sphere with his great song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which was about the fascist intrusion of Big Brother government. It was about the FBI and the CIA and the police — faceless bureaucracies — intruding into our private lives. What in the world has happened to the Democratic Party? Its passivity towards this awful takeover of our lives by a know-it-all government, as shown by the way Obama has governed by constantly going around Congress — appointing czars and one new layer of bureaucracy after another. And hardly a peep of protest from liberals. It’s like the movie of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” — Democrats have turned into the Eloi; they’re like sheep. They hear a signal, and it’s like pre-programmed spin in their heads — they just trot like sheep in one direction. I am voting Green in protest against the systemic corruption of my party.

STARTING THURSDAY: Independent Voter Network Debate

Join us for the Google+ presidential debates this week!

The next presidential debate is Tuesday, October 16th and the Commission on Presidential Debates has yet to invite Dr. Jill Stein or any other third party candidates. As we have the past two debates, we invite you to make some noise during the CPD debate to help get our messages into the political discourse. But, we also have two exciting opportunities for you to participate in this week – two alternative debates!

Join us this Thursday, October 18thm at 4pmPT/7pm ET as Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and Libertarian candidate and former Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson face off for the first time!

The Independent Voter Network and Google+ Politics will be hosting the first ever, online presidential debate. Unlike debates in the past, the candidates and moderators will simultaneously participate from different states.

Each participant will appear using live, videoconference technology and respond to questions submitted online from citizens like you!

The online presidential debate will focus on five key topics in domestic policy including

Tax and Economic Policy,

Energy,

Housing and Financial Regulation,

Foreign Policy, and

One topic selected based upon online user response.

IVN.us will be looking to voters across the country to participate by submitting their questions for the candidates within each topic. Each topic will include two questions submitted using the hashtag #indyvote on Google+ and Twitter, or responding to calls for questions on the ‘Independent Voter’ Facebook Page.

The debate can be viewed live on October 18, 2012 beginning at 4pm Pacific on IVN.us, or on IVN.us’ Google+ and YouTube page.

Follow the hashtag #indyvote on Twitter and Google+ during the debate to join the conversation, respond to the candidates, and let them know how they are doing in answering your questions. Learn more about how to participate by watching this video.

Green presidential candidate Jill Stein and running mate Cheri Honkala paused in their campaigning today to acknowledge National Coming Out Day, an internationally-recognized celebration honoring those who publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Today we celebrate the diversity of our people and our commitment to stand in solidarity with people of all sexual orientations and gender identities who have added so much to the life of our nation,” said Dr. Stein. “We encourage everyone to stand with the members of our LGBTQ community as they ask for the fairness and respect that they deserve, but which is not yet fully granted.”

Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala said that President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage was a positive step forward, but sharply disagreed with his statement that legalization should be left to individual states.

“Human rights are universal. We support national recognition of same-sex marriage rights, without which true equality does not exist. There is no more basic right than the right to choose whom we love and whom we call family, without the state declaring that one kind of family is more legitimate than another,” said Cheri Honkala.

Dr. Stein noted that she had declared her support for same-sex marriage in 2002, becoming the first gubernatorial candidate in her state to take such a position. Earlier this year, she had traveled to North Carolina to oppose a state ballot measure that would prohibit same-sex marriage.

“In November, marriage equality will appear on the ballots in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, and Washington. I urge every voter to let his or her vote count on the side of fairness, justice, and respect for their gay, lesbian, and transgender neighbors who have waited far too long for equal treatment under the law,” she added.

“We must challenge President Obama on his silence as states and defeat or overturn LBGTQ protections and pass anti-gay anti-equality laws,” said Cheri Honkala. “If you believe that this is a matter of fundamental human rights, as Jill and I do, then you go into that state and make the case for marriage equality. That is the politics of courage.”

Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala also called for passage of federal legislation that outlaws discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and marital status in employment, housing, and public accommodations. While Republicans have mostly opposed such a law, Democrats have dragged their feet on ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act), failing to move the bill forward and enact it when they controlled Congress and the White House.

“While Democrats and some gay rights groups have hesitated on the inclusion of gender identity in such laws, we in the Green Party fully are committed to protecting transgender people. We also support inclusion of marital status under the protection. Discrimination on the basis of marital status, in employee benefits, wills, visitation rights, immigration, and other bases has affected same-sex couples, different-sex couples in common-law relationships, and single individuals of all sexual orientations,” said Dr. Stein.

Dr. Stein said that President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage rights and repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” after it became evident that his lack of action was resulting in a loss of enthusiasm among LGBTQ Americans and might cost him millions of votes in 2012.

“This is an important lesson. President Obama realized that he could no longer take LGBTQ votes for granted. But he still believes can take for granted a lot of voters who oppose war and the power of Wall Street and who care about the environment and the advance of climate change. Too many voters keeping showing that Democratic politicians can banish progressive, humane ideas and adopt Republican agenda without worrying about the loss of votes,” said Jill Stein.

“This is one of the best reasons to vote Green. A strong Green Party showing on Election Day will show that Democratic and Republican politicians are no longer each others’ sole competition. Every vote for a Green candidate helps change the U,S, political landscape by building a strong alternative party — one in which LGBTQ rights have unwavering support.”

I’ll be watching the debates. Not on CNN or ABC, but online at Occupy the Debates or at Democracy Now or Free Speech TV, where the third party candidates and others have a chance to answer questions and comment in real time.

I can’t say I’m not mad at anybody. If being ripped off and lied to, and having murders committed in your name around the world don’t make you mad, there’s something wrong with you, and whatever is wrong with me, it’s not that. I’ll be watching tonight’s presidential debates, but like most people, I already know what I’ll do on November 6.

I won’t vote Republican, because among other things, the GOP is the permanent party of white supremacy. Republicans are also the permanent party of Wall Street, the party of Big Agriculture, the party of Big Insurance, Big Oil, Big Real Estate, Big Pharma, of more nukes Republicans are the party of privatizers, jailers, charter schools and military contractors. Republicans started the 40 years war on drugs, and of course they remain the party of Empire and Permanent War. Republicans hate brown people and threaten to jail and deport as many as they possibly can.

Democrats on the other hand, are the permanent party of Wall Street. Democrats are the party of Big Agriculture, Big Insurance, Big Oil, Big Real Estate, Big Pharma and more nukes, more jails and continuing the 40 years war on drugs. Democrats are the party of more privatizations — Corey Booker is trying to privatize the water in Newark New Jersey for instance.

Democrats are the party of military contractors and charter schools as well. When Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan ran the school system in Chicago he gave several high schools and even a middle school to the US military to run as their own charter schools. Obama’s Race To The Top program bludgeons school districts around the country into closing public schools, firing teachers and replacing them with charters, and is lauded by Democrat big city mayors in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Unlike Republicans, Democrats often say they like brown people, and they get the lion’s share of the Latino vote. But President Obama’s words don’t match his actions. Obama has deported more brown people in 3 years than the last three Republicans put together.

On the good side, this Democratic president, and many other Democrats even support gay marriage and the right to access birth control and abortions. And although Democratic congressional leaders, when they controlled the House during and after Katrina, refused to hold hearings on the disaster because they were afraid of looking too pro-black, Democrats are emphatically NOT the party of white supremacy. In fact all the black elected officials elected with majorities of actual black votes are Democrats.

So there are differences. But down here on the ground where people actually live, those differences don’t amount to much. Both are war parties, parties of the rich, parties that want to privatize roads, water, public schools (that’s what charters are about — privatization!) parties that will continue the war on drugs and policies that feed our American prison state.

I grew up believing my vote meant something, that it was my voice. The people I called my teachers taught me to raise my voice against unjust wars and economic oppression, the same way I’d raise it against racism. Exchanging a few white faces in city halls, legislatures and the White House for black and brown ones isn’t really such a big deal.

What passes for black political power nowadays isn’t such a big deal to me because poverty rates are as high now as when a bygone Democratic president declared a war on poverty — a project that failed because he spent all the money in a colonial war that killed millions in Vietnam, and climbing still higher. Prolonging the careers of black Democrats like Atlanta’s Kasim Reed, Newark’s Corey Booker, Philly’s Mike Nutter or even of congressmen John Lewis and Jim Clyburn as they front for gentrifiers, charter schools, and power companies that build new nukes in the middle of poor black towns being poisoned by old ones is just not anything I want to do with my voice.

I can see why all the big preachers want black folks to vote Democratic. Most of them are part of, or aspiring parts of the black political class, the black misleadership class themselves. Many depend on so-called “faith based” funding to keep their ministries alive. The black church has been captured, and is a kind of “state religion” of the black political class, divorced from the lives of the class of black people who provide over 40% of the nation’s prisoners.

I’m an old guy now, past sixty but not yet senior enough for Medicare, and I’ve been in the movement a long time. Younger people sometimes ask me what to do. After telling them not to respect their elders all that much — we didn’t respect them that much 45 years ago either — the main thing I tell them is that movement leaders and participants back in the day had visions and horizons longer than the next election cycle or the one after that. They were prepared to fight whether they had allies in city hall, the legislature or the courts or not. Unlike today’s NAACP and NAN, they developed agendas without the guidance of corporate funders and their recommended professionals.

We’ve proved we can elect as many Democrats as we want, all the way up the food chain without changing much here at the bottom. I know this well. I gave more than 20 years of my own life to electing better Democrats, helping Democrats run better campaigns, and registering more Democrat voters. I met Barack Obama 20 years ago on one of those gigs in Project VOTE Illinois, where he was state director and I was one of three field organizers who signed up 130,000 new voters and flogged them out to the polls that year. We elected Harold Washington, and a lot of state legislators and a few Congressional reps. The Democratic party will still let you work for it, but once in office, big money calls the shots. It’s time to leave that house and build a new one.

It’s an uncomfortable truth: the present US political system is largely people-proof and democracy-proof. The time and treasure we’ve sunk into supporting Democrats the last seventy years is gone. It’s a horse we raised and watered and fed that somebody else has ridden off and it won’t be back.

I still believe my voice and my vote mean something. Kwame Toure used to say the thing to do is find an organization you’re in substantial agreement with and join it, or if it does not exist, start one and recruit your neighbors.

So I’ve joined the Georgia Green Party, and I’m recruiting those of my neighbors who still believes that unemployment and mass incarceration have to be addressed, that illegal wars and deportations must be stopped, that Wall Street must be reined in, and that gentrification and privatization have to be stopped. Most voters who call themselves Democrats, in fact millions of those voting for President Obama believe exactly these things already, but are substantially disinformed about what their elected officials actually DO.

I was at a demonstration in support of Chicago teachers Saturday, and some participants seemed to assume that the president was on their side, that maybe they could enlist figures like Rev. Al Sharpton to aid their struggle to mobilize people against the inroads of school privatizaters. It fell to me to tell them the bad news — that Sharpton took a half million dollar bribe years ago to jump on the charter school bandwagon, that he toured the country with Newt Gingrich and Arne Duncan beating the bushes for high stakes testing and charters, and the administration is actually the enemy on this one.

Eventually they and many like them, if they want a party that stands up for what they believe, will have to become Greens. It’s my job to make sure that happens.

So I’ll watch the debates, sure. The crooks who run them won’t let Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate on the same stage with the corporate candidates. So I’ll watch Democracy Now’scoverage, in which Jill Stein and another candidate in real time answer the same questions as they do. My colleague Glen Ford will be a guest at Occupy The Debates in Baltimore as well.

So yes, I’ll watch. And I’ll vote. But not for a Republican and not for a Democrat, not again. I’ll vote like my voice means something. I won’t be coerced into voting for a 100% evil Democrat just because the Republicans are 120% evil. I’m voting Green this year, and helping build a Green Party, right here in Georgia where I live.

As the nation recovers from the first presidential debate today, Texas won’t be seeing blue or red, but rather a lot of green.

And no, we are not talking about money.

Jill Stein, Green Party’s presidential nominee, will be spending four days in Texas trying to convince Texans to vote for her in the presidential race.

The Houston Chronicle has learned that the campaign trip was not Stein’s idea. According to Don Cook, Green Party candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in District 22, the Green Party of Texas reached out to Stein about a month ago and invited her for a visit. It was not until last Thursday that Stein’s visit to the Lone Star State was confirmed.

Currently, there are 43 different Green Party candidates running for office in Texas. (The full list can be found here.)

In an effort to “make the party grow and proper,” Stein will attend events alongside Green Party candidates in the Houston and San Antonio areas.

‘We are trying to get as many candidates to be available to appear with her,” Cook told the Chronicle. “We will be working together to amplify each other’s words.”

Jill Stein will visit University of Houston and the Student Conference Center at Lone Star College, today. On Friday, she will hold a press conference at Tranquility Park. On Saturday, she is scheduled to attend a fundraiser for Bexar County Green Party in San Antonio, followed by another fundraiser on Sunday afternoon in Houston.

Jill Stein will speak about the Keystone XL Pipeline at a press conference with Juan Parras of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Service (TEJAS) and Benjamin Franklin, who was choked, pepper-sprayed, and tasered as part of the confrontation with police officers at the Tar Sands Blockade (a citizen action organized to halt the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, ongoing in Wood County, Texas).

The Bexar County Green Party will host a candidates’ night fundraiser with special guest speaker Jill Stein. Come out to hear Dr. Stein and Texas Green Party congressional candidates Antonio Diaz, Meghan Owen, and David Collins!